A Fever Dream: The Ballad of Travis and Taylor
You don’t know where to begin. The sickness, the malarial swamp, runs so deep that the past is immeasurable. We could try Salem, in 1692, as John Proctor and dozens of others are smothered to death by the ancestors of the evangelical scum that now shit on the core of what used to be a nation, now only half of that.
I have a deep, inescapable memory though. In the summer of 1960, newly married Dorothy and I lived in a pleasant shack owned by my parents, in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, at the end of a dirt road that bottomed at the Croton River, which was nothing more than the overflow of New York City’s life-giving dam. I labored at a summer assignment, a piece on the realist foreign policy of the scholar Hans Morgenthau–a piece that my soon-to-be-thesis advisor Ed Furniss would tell me was of no scholarly worth whatsoever. Dorothy and I both managed to enjoy ourselves at our disparate tasks, until that July came the Morning of the Amazing Stench, the likes of which would overpower even Vivek Ramaswamy, or J.D. Vance, or Elise Stefanik, or razor-wire wielding Greg Abbott or any others of the scum who’ve set an all-time record for reeking inhumanity.
What was this unbearable stench, seeming to emanate from just a few yards away? We called my parents, and got the answer: it was the cesspool, buried deep in the ground but now seeking an escape, and it had to be emptied! While we stood by and oversaw the properly garbed workers, it had never occurred to us city folk that flushing a toilet was only the beginning of an anti-adventure. The worst ever, until the murderous priests of Salem were equaled and perhaps finally even superseded, by the their contemporary successors at inhuman–well, shit.
While thinking about the inhuman stench that now engulfs us, I came across the following comment–or perhaps I wrote it myself, but to guard against perjury I won’t make that claim:
“There is a fundamental difference between, on the one hand, someone who lives in the real world but also has questions about the moon landing and, on the other, a person who believes the Covid vaccines are responsible for a vast number of American deaths and Jan. 6 was an inside job and the American elite is trying to replace the electorate with new immigrant voters and the 2020 election was rigged and Donald Trump is God’s choice to save America.”
Yes, Salem, William Phipps and Samuel Sewall, yes. Yes, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Yes, the Nuremberg Laws. Yes the ritual murder trials of 19th Century Europe. One murderous priest is absolutely just like another. And one viciously insane would-be tyrant…
Here’s how it goes: The pro-Trump broadcaster Mike Crispi led off on Sunday by claiming that the National Football League is “rigged” in order to spread “Democrat propaganda”: “Calling it now: KC wins, goes to Super Bowl, Swift comes out at the halftime show and ‘endorses’ Joe Biden with Kelce at midfield.”
Do we grasp this? I don’t and I hope you don’t either. One small point about the world of drek: you can rig an athletic event for a team to lose–cf. how gangsters bought off the Chicago White Sox star pitcher in the 1919 World Series: but you can’t rig a team to win. They have to do it.
On this point, just brief a note on last Sunday’s Kansas City triumph over Baltimore in the Conference Championship:
Late in the 2nd Quarter, with the outcome still well in doubt, Kelce went out for a crucial 3rd down pass from Pat Mahomes, tripped and fell, rolled over onto his back, and caught the perfect throw while lying on his back for a first down. KC went on to score.
What’s the point here? you can try, but you can only rig a loss, never a win. President Pete Rozelle, Coach Andy Reid, Pat Mahomes, and yes Joe Biden and the Left-wing secret weapon Taylor Swift: they can’t make Travis Kelce catch that pass. Nor can God nor Jesus. Only the Man himself can stay on his back and keep that ball from touching the fucking ground. That’s what we call Playing the Game: you’ve got to play it, all the Democrats in Kansas City cannot make him do that, and if Joe Biden bets a buck against that play he’ll lose it.
And oh yes, Taylor Swift has one favorite song, ten minutes long on You Tube, it’s a great song, listen to it–and halfway through while swinging through the air she looks at the audience and calls out “Fuck the Patriarchy!” Beating out the old Gods.
That’s the way the real world works, you win some and you lose some and you only do that by giving your best. And if, say, Laura Ingraham or Jeanine Piro think they can do it better, then go out and get a microphone and start singing. Or stay in the MAGA cesspool shit show, where they apparently belong. Or as the boss put it:
He said, “This was a great country three years ago” he said. Now “we are a nation that is hostile to liberty, freedom, faith and even to God. We are a nation whose economy is collapsing into a cesspool of ruin,” he said, calmly. “We have become a drug-infested, crime-ridden nation that is incapable of solving even the smallest, smallest problem,” he went on.
He said that “2024 is our final battle.”
So here’s how the cesspit dwellers conceive of their “final battle.”
From various sources: “Right-wing activists have indulged in baseless speculation that Ms. Swift’s romance with the Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce — a kind of ur-American couple of football star and wholesome pop icon — is a contrivance engineered by Democrats, or perhaps the National Football League, to trick unsuspecting Americans into boosting Super Bowl ratings or voting for Mr. Biden in November.”
Or, “A version of that theory aired on Fox News in mid-January when the host Jesse Watters floated the idea that Ms. Swift was a government asset engaged in psychological warfare. He suggested that the runaway success of her Eras concert tour was aided by the Defense Department. “Have you ever wondered why or how she blew up like this?” Mr. Watters asked viewers. (He allowed that he had no solid evidence: “If we did, we’d share it.”)
“One of the more bizarre and depressing stories of the week is the MAGA freakout that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are vaccine-loving secret agents of President Biden’s re-election campaign — at least I think I have that right — and who do you suppose positioned himself in the dead center of that delusion?”
Could have been the piece of scum (thank you Nikki Haley) Vivek
Ramaswamy! “I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl?” “And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall.”
Whereas, of course, the rich are very different. They fuck you over with all honesty. One last quote: “In a decision that cast a harsh light on the behavior of Mr. Musk and Tesla’s board of directors, Chancellor Kathleen St. J. McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery said the chief executive had effectively overseen his own compensation plan — currently worth about $50 billion — with the help of compliant board members.”
I’m trying to remember that last time Taylor or Travis stole anything. Thank you Taylor, fuck the patriarchy. She posted a photo of her new album on her Instagram page, writing in the caption “All’s Fair In Love and Poetry.” You bet.
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